North Carolina is the sight of the latest attack on gay rights in America and symbolic of the backward nature of politics in the grand old US of A. Although as the world moves forward the US of A looks less U and drags it’s heels in the last century.
Republican supporters of a bill that would ask voters to write a ban on same-sex marriage into the state constitution say it has its best chance at passage since they started pushing for it in 2004. Reports the Charlotte Observer.
Senator James Forrester, a Gaston County homophobic and prejudiced filled Republican, has filed the bill consistently for nearly a decade, but the proposal never made it to a full vote. You see the more understanding, more accepting and perhaps more forward thinking Democrats held control of both the House and Senate for most of those years. Yet, now, with Republicans now controlling the legislature, Forrester is looking forward to hearings and a victory.
"I think we have enough votes to get it passed," he told reporters, as Republicans hold majorities in both chambers, and similar bills in past years have drawn bi-partisan support.
The proposed amendment would go on the 2012 ballot if three-fifths of the House and Senate vote in favour. The governor cannot veto proposed constitutional amendments.
In 2007, a House bill calling for a same-sex marriage constitutional ban had 66 sponsors and co-sponsors - just six people short of the votes needed to pass - in a year when Republicans were in the minority. The bill made it out of a House committee, but then House-Speaker Joe Hackney, an Orange County Democrat, used the power of his office to kill the proposal.
This year's Senate bill has 23 sponsors. If it gets to the Senate floor, it can pass even if only the 30 Republicans vote for it.
The state already has a law banning same-sex marriage, but supporters of the constitutional amendment said it's not enough. It's vulnerable to changes by future legislatures, Forrester said, or a judge who thinks it's wrong.
"It prevents a liberal judge from saying 'no,' " Forrester said.
This is a sickening scene of blatant homophobia for no good reason, other than the desire to persecute a section of society. To deny a person, a citizen of the state the same rights, abide by the same laws with the same freedoms as everybody else, is a form of slavery, a sight of a state and a bigoted nation. Not only does it reflect badly on the state, but also on the USA in general.
Taking a look at the gay rights, equality, and issues on a state by state basis, its clear beyond any doubt that they have a worse record than many African countries, indeed in many states its only fractionally better than being in Uganda. There is a mood sweeping through America, which is more threatening and dangerous to gay people than either of the two World Wars, and that is the political homophobia from the Republican Tea party of America.
In this case, Forrester is not content to have a law that already prevents gay people from declaring their love and commitment to EACH OTHER, he wants to make sure they will never be able to change that law when more enlightened people come to power!
"This is about sending a message that gay and lesbian people are second-class citizens," said Ian Palmquist, executive director of the gay-rights group Equality North Carolina. There's no likelihood of getting a successful challenge to the law through the North Carolina courts, Palmquist said to the Charlotte Observer. He’s right, it’s basically denouncing the whole gay population of the world as second class people, people that are no better than animals and who don't deserve to have the same laws, rights or equalities.
The Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group, is giving Equality N.C. $10,000 for work to keep the question off the ballot. Good luck to them, however it seems absurd in this day and age that such a fight would be needed. Despite blatant homophobic reporting by most in state media, over half the population of the state are against such a ban on gay marriage. A new Elon University Poll indicates that a majority of North Carolinians oppose a same-sex marriage ban. According to results of the survey, which called 467 adults from Feb. 20 to 24, more than 55 per cent would oppose the marriage ban amendment, while about 38 per cent would back it.
The poll is a survey of households, not registered voters, so it is not an indicator of how such a question would fare on a ballot.
States began their efforts to write same-sex marriage bans into their constitutions about the time Forrester filed his first bill. A 2003 ruling by the highest court in Massachusetts that denying marriage to same-sex couples was unconstitutional triggered a wave of bans in other states. Amendment proponents in North Carolina said then that married same-sex couples might move from Massachusetts to North Carolina and demand that their marriages be recognized.
Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James, a long-time supporter of the ban, said the amendment would make a moral statement. "The purpose is not just to prevent Massachusetts people coming down," he said. "It's also to put a big letter of shame on the behaviour. We don't want them here. We don't want them marrying. If you're going to do it in San Francisco, it's your own business."
It’s that whole attitude of we don't want ‘THEM’ here that perpetuates within, mainly the Republican, law makers and politicians which is dangerous to both gay and lesbian people of this state, but all over America. Slowly but surly the global acceptance and dominance of America is fading, it’s power diminishing, it’s absurd laws and politicians being laughed at. No longer is ‘The America Way’ seen as something precious, powerful and aspirational, the American way is lost, broken and tattered, America is a nation that beats up and spits out it’s poor. It’s a nation that cares little for equality, little for the rights of individuals (unless you happen to be white middle class republicans that is) It’s a fractious nation, 50 odd little states with different laws, different rules, different cultures and different hatreds.
Land of the free ? Yeah right!
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